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James Hinchcliffe takes a spin in Marco Andretti's Indy car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Thursday. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

James Hinchcliffe parlays switch into top spot on Indianapolis 500 speed chart

May 13, 2013

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James Hinchcliffe has people to thank for what became the fastest lap of Tuesday's IndyCar practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

One is Graham Rahal, for dragging him around the big oval on the hot lap that registered 224.210 mph. The other is Marco Andretti, the driver of the Andretti Autosport car Hinchcliffe was experimenting with at the time.

“Marco's pretty upset with the fact I got the fastest lap in his car,” said a smiling Hinchcliffe, who didn't really care what Andretti thought. "I got to see how good I look in red and blue. There are some things we wanted to see and suss out, and that's the way to do it; it's not uncommon. Guys have done it in the past -- especially this team. I think TK (Tony Kanaan) drove every single car on the team at some point during the month. It's standard procedure to feel a couple of things out."

Andretti still has the fastest lap of the month, set Monday at 225.100 mph. But neither he nor Hinchcliffe could predict where speeds are going to go this week, with additional boost coming Friday for the final practices leading up to qualifying.

“This track is the cruel mistress, and she's very temperamental to temperature,” Hinchcliffe said.

J.R. Hildebrand of Panther Racing was second on the speed chart at 223.652 mph. Andretti was third in the same car Hinchcliffe drove, at 223.570 mph.

The rest of the top five was Helio Castroneves (Team Penske) at 223.556 mph and Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport) at 223.332 mph.

All the drivers admitted to the draft being a big factor in the speeds, but Hildebrand wasn't apologizing for it.

“At the end of the day you want to run with the people you're going to race with,” he said.

There were no accidents for the fourth day in a row. Tuesday was the first warm day, with afternoon temperatures reaching 83 mph. Wednesday's high is expected to rise to 86 degrees.

Thirty-two car-and-driver combinations participated Tuesday. The one nearly ready to go is Buddy Lazier, but his team has a one-engine lease with Chevrolet, which means it's limited to 550 miles prior to qualifying. He won't get a new engine for the race.